Join us for the 21st Annual Research and Impact Day, a premier student-led event showcasing groundbreaking research and fostering career development in the healthcare field. This event provides a unique platform for intellectual exchange and collaboration. Don’t miss this opportunity to engage in meaningful discussions and support the next generation of healthcare leaders and innovators.
Event Highlights:
- Keynote Address and Panel Discussion: Hear from leaders in the healthcare sector.
- Student Presentations: Discover innovative research from emerging researchers, practitioners, and policymakers.
- Networking Opportunities: Connect with students, faculty, alumni, and professionals from industry, academia, and government during breakfast, lunch, and the evening reception.
Bridging the Gap Between Research and Reality
This year’s theme, “Bridging the Gap Between Research and Reality,” focuses on transforming cutting-edge research into tangible improvements in healthcare delivery, policy, and patient outcomes. We will explore evidence-informed decision-making and innovative solutions for clinical and community-based challenges, fostering collaboration to ensure our collective research drives meaningful and lasting change in the health system.
Keynote
Dr. Lianne Jeffs
Dr. Lianne Jeffs is the Chief Scientific Officer at the Science of Care Institute, Research and Innovation Lead at Sinai Health and Senior Clinician Scientist with the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute at Sinai Health. She also holds Associate Professor status with the Institute for Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto.
Dr. Jeffs leads a solution-focused research program that aims to address global challenges around safety and quality gaps in our health-care ecosystems by advancing and accelerating health services and policy research. Her research program focuses on accelerating discoveries & innovation; advancing Science, Practice, & Policy; and transforming healthcare ecosystems.
Dr. Jeffs also serves on several international board and management committees including the International Learning Collaborative (Management Board, Strategy and Policy Forum), and Research Special Interest Group and SONSIEL (Treasurer, Member, Research Committee CHIRPS). She served as Chair of the Canadian Practice Based Research Network (CP-BRAIN) last year (2024).
Dr. Jeffs currently holds three Canadian Institutes of Health Research grants including Exploring Evolving Models of Care During the COVID19 Pandemic (Models of Care study CIHR Operating Grant) that elucidates the erosion of fundamental, compassionate care and insights for building back resilience in our healthcare workforce, The Developing and Assessing Feasibility, Acceptability, Appropriateness, and Impact of the Enabling Sustainable and SafE health care through fundamental Nursing CarE in Canada: The ESSENCE CANADA study, which involves co-designing of an evidence-informed bundled compassionate care and hygiene nursing intervention. More recently, Dr. Jeffs was awarded a three-year Health Research Team Grant – Strengthening the Health Workforce for System Transformation for the study entitled Examining and Exploring the Implementation and Impact of a Leadership Intervention on Work Life and Fundamental Care Delivery (ILC Leadership Program). This third study is examining and exploring the implementation of a leadership intervention (offered in English and French) aimed at enhancing the resilience of our health-care workforce and embedding of fundamental, compassionate care within health-care organizations across Canada.
Panelist
Dr. Monika Kastner
Monika Kastner is the Research Chair in Knowledge Translation and Implementation at North York General Hospital and Associate Professor at the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation and the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Toronto. Monika’s goals are to improve the health of priority populations and to advance the science and practice of Knowledge translation/ mobilization and Implementation science. Her research is focused on improving the health of diverse older adults living with social frailty and multiple chronic conditions using innovative e-health technologies that optimize healthcare delivery, clinical decision-making, and improved patient outcomes.
Panelist
Dr. Harindra Wijeysundera
Dr. Wijeysundera is the Chief of the Schulich Heart Program, and Head of the Division of Cardiology, at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Center. He is an interventional cardiologist and a senior scientist at Sunnybrook Research Institute as well as an adjunct senior scientist at ICES. He is a professor in the Department of Medicine and the Institute for Health Policy, Management and Evaluation (IHPME) at the University of Toronto. His clinical practice is focused on transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) and coronary chronic total occlusions. He holds a Canada Research Chair in Structural Heart Disease Policy and Outcomes; his research program focuses on health technology assessments in cardiovascular disease. He has been actively involved in health system leadership. From 2017-2020, he was the VP for Medical Devices at the Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technology in Health (CADTH). In 2022, he was appointed as the inaugural Provincial Cardiac Lead for CorHealth-Ontario Health.
Panelist
Corey Bernard
Corey Bernard is the Director of Equity, Inclusion, Diversity, and Anti-Racism at Ontario Health. Corey has many years of experience leading the development and implementation of equity-advancing strategies into health care organizations at multiple levels of the Ontario health system, including the Mississauga Halton Local Health Integration Networks (LHIN), Health Quality Ontario, North York General Hospital and other community hospital settings. Corey is a strong advocate for community-based organizing and engagement, and is committed to serving community by increasing equity and justice.
Corey has a particular interest in research aimed at improving the social and material conditions of individuals and communities facing the greatest health disparities in Canada, and has actively participated in efforts to address these challenges including:
- Co-leading Ontario Health’s Equity Data and Analytics Strategy, which seeks to use sociodemographic data collection, governance and use as a tool to better identify, target and address disparities in health care access, quality and outcomes
- Co-authoring the Engagement, Governance, Access, and Protection (EGAP) framework, which provides guidance on the collection, management, analysis, and use of race-based data from Black communities
- Participating in the advisory group for the CIHR-funded Screening for Poverty And Related Social Determinants and Intervening to Improve Knowledge of and Links to Resources (SPARK) Study
- Serving on the UPSTREAM LAB Advisory Council, a non-profit research lab dedicated to improving population health and well-being by addressing social determinants of health
Some of Corey’s volunteer-member affiliations include The Anti-Racism External Advisory Group for the National Collaborating Centre for Determinants of Health (NCCDH), The Black Health Equity Working Group, and The Black Experiences in Health Care Symposium Planning Committee (2017 and 2020).
Corey is a soon-to-be graduate of the Dalla Lana School of Public Health as he recently completed a Masters of Health Science in Health Administration in the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation. He was also a recipient of the Dalla Lana School of Public Health’s 2024 Outstanding Black Leadership in Public Health and Health Systems Award.
| 8:00 AM – 8:30 AM | Presenter Registration Location: First Floor Lobby |
| 8:30 AM – 9:00 AM | General Registration Location: First Floor Lobby Breakfast provided by U of T Catering Location: 6th Floor Lobby |
| 9:00 AM – 9:20 AM | Opening Remarks Location: Room 610 (6th Floor Auditorium) |
| 9:20 AM – 10:20 AM | Expert Panel Location: Room 610 (6th Floor Auditorium) |
| 10:20 AM – 10:30 AM | Break and Transition to Oral and Poster Sessions A |
| 10:30 AM – 11:50 AM | Poster Presentations A Location: 6th & 7th Floor Lobbies Oral Presentations A Location: Rooms 696, 790, 734, and 740 Please note: poster and oral presentations will be running concurrently. |
| 11:50 AM – 12:00 PM | Break and Transition to Lunch |
| 12:00 PM – 12:50 PM | Lunch provided by Santaguida |
| 12:50 PM – 1:00 PM | Transition to Oral and Poster Sessions B |
| 1:00 PM – 2:20 PM | Poster Presentations B Location: 6th & 7th Floor Lobbies Oral Presentations B Location: Rooms 696, 790, 734, and 740 Please note: poster and oral presentations will be running concurrently. |
| 2:20 PM – 2:30 PM | Break and Transition to Keynote |
| 2:30 PM -3:15 PM | Keynote Address by Dr. Lianne Jeffs Location: Room 610 (6th Floor Auditorium) |
| 3:15 PM – 3:20 PM | Break and Transition to Awards Ceremony |
| 3:20 PM – 4:00 PM | Awards Ceremony Location: Room 610 (6th Floor Auditorium) |
| 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM | Reception provided by U of T Catering and Campus Beverages Location: 7th Floor Lobby Please note: Entry into the reception requires a separate registration. Registration for the main conference does not guarantee entry into the reception. |
Event Program
Oral & Poster Presentations 1
10:30 AM – 11:50 AM | 6th and 7th Floor Lobbies, 610, 696, 790, 734, and 740
6th Floor Open Space
| 1 | Alyssa Kelly | Exploring how health equity is understood and applied in Ontario hospitals: A qualitative case study |
| 2 | Yacine Marouf | Evaluating causal survival machine learning for predicting treatment effects in precision medicine |
| 3 | Christina Reppas | Accuracy of preferred language data in administrative databases used for health services research of older adults in Ontario |
| 4 | Haneen AlTurki | Structural and functional brain abnormalities associated with childhood maltreatment: a systematic review of neuroimaging findings |
| 5 | Jane Zhao | The social organization of primary care teams in Ontario, Canada: a protocol for an institutional ethnography study |
| 6 | Erica Wennberg | The association between the introduction of virtual care and follow-up mental health care among youth whose first mental health contact was through the emergency department or hospital |
| 7 | Shangjucta Das Pooja, Kush Patel, Awlad Hussain, Hripsime Daniyelyan | Bridging the gaps in adolescent mental health: from silos to synergy in the Canadian healthcare system |
| 8 | Suzanna Apostolovski | Improving patient centered care for women with ductal carcinoma in situ |
| 9 | Ogechi Obi | The effectiveness of remote patient monitoring for falls in older adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis |
| 10 | Andrea Parks | The experiences of younger middle-aged adults with ALS |
| 11 | Farnaz Rafiee | Comparative effectiveness of transcatheter therapies for secondary mitral regurgitation in heart failure: protocol for a systematic review and network meta-analysis |
| 12 | Katherine Sawicka | A systematic review of the content validity of patient reported outcome measures of self-management for use in youth with multiple sclerosis during transition from pediatric to adult care |
| 13 | Ijeoma Christiana Izundu | Can enhanced training in dermatology for family medicine residents and physicians reduce dermatology referrals and wait times |
| 14 | Timileyin Awolola | Bridging technology and policy: a predictive analytics framework for chronic disease prevention |
| 15 | Zachary Dionisopoulos | Universal vs. targeted screening strategies for congenital cytomegalovirus at birth |
| 16 | Konrad Samsel | Healthcare strain and geographic disparities in patient satisfaction: an NLP-based analysis of feedback comments across 45 Ontario hospitals |
7th Floor Open Space
| 17 | Aida Glembocki | Preventing invasive aspergillosis in lung transplant recipients: a cost-utility analysis |
| 18 | Vishwathsen Karthikeyan | Insurance-related disparities in post-discharge disposition and hospital length of stay following spinal cord injury: a retrospective cohort study |
| 19 | Saeed Almurait | Oral and maxillofacial manifestations of systemic sclerosis: a scoping review |
| 20 | Emily Hamovitch | Loneliness as a predictor of patient experience |
| 21 | Anika Garg | Characterizing data quality and deidentifying of clinical notes |
| 22 | Joyce Tsang | Long-term outcomes in survivors of adolescent and young adult osteosarcoma: a systematic review and meta-analysis |
| 23 | Josh Plener | The association between baseline patient recovery expectations and improved walking distance at 6-months in lumbar spinal stenosis patients receiving a comprehensive rehabilitation program: a secondary analysis |
| 24 | Mohammad Jay | Optimizing radioactive iodine dose and identifying predictors of disease-free status in intermediate-risk papillary thyroid cancer: a retrospective Canadian cohort study |
| 25 | Huda Shah | Participation of racialized individuals in healthcare research: a scoping review |
| 26 | Pegah Rahbar | The association between chronic back problems and poor sleep quality among Ontarian adults 60 years and older: a secondary analysis of the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) 2015-2016 |
| 27 | Sarah Silverberg | Adverse events of first-line therapy for pediatric tuberculosis: a systematic review and meta-analysis |
| 28 | Michael Prodanuk | Host blood biomarkers for the diagnosis of childhood tuberculosis: a systematic review and meta-analysis |
| 29 | Kimberly Nurse | Measurement properties of the CollaboRATE Tool to assess shared decision making: a systematic review |
Room 610 – Theme: Bridging Reality and Research
| 10:30 – 10:45 AM | Elliott Yee | Primary care access is associated with improved long-term survival after severe traumatic injury |
| 10:45 – 11:00 AM | Omid Jafarinezhad | LEAD watch: an interactive visual analytics tool for tracking lead contamination in Ontario schools |
| 11:00 – 11:15 AM | Zexing Song | Outcome switching in observational studies of interventions: comparison of registration records and published articles |
| 11:15 – 11:30 AM | Kamyar Kazari | Radon in public housing: a data-driven dashboard addressing an invisible health threat in Canada |
Room 790 – Theme: Epidemiology
| 10:30 – 10:45 AM | Jacob McCoy | A longitudinal assessment of lung function in a clinical cohort of pediatric patients with severe asthma |
| 10:45 – 11:00 AM | Gemma Postill | Unsupervised machine learning clustering of injured older adults to support patient-centered outcome prognostication after severe injury |
| 11:00 – 11:15 AM | Jenny Yu Qing Huang | Rate of incident dementia and care needs in older adults with new traumatic brain injury: a population-based cohort study through an equity lens |
| 11:15 – 11:30 AM | Darby Little | Early primary care follow-up and mortality in burn survivors: a population-based cohort study |
| 11:30 – 11:45 AM | Abhishek Chopra | Enhancing hepatitis c care through digital health: addressing clinical barriers for vulnerable populations |
Room 740 – Theme: Equity and Social Determinants of Health
| 10:30 – 10:45 AM | Intekhab Hossain | Outcomes and experiences of Indigenous patients in Newfoundland’s Bariatric Surgery Program: A pilot study |
| 10:45 – 11:00 AM | Natalia Angeloni | Impact of sex on the likelihood of trauma center admission for female and male patients in adult patients with traumatic brain injury: A population-based cohort study |
| 11:00 – 11:15 AM | Nicole Bajcar | Reducing health disparities in diabetes related amputations through community-based foot screening: Using an evidence-informed education program for prevention and early management of diabetes-related foot complications. |
| 11:15 – 11:30 AM | Mary Elias | Time to Access of Flash Glucose Monitoring Systems Among Older Adult Residents of Ontario, by Immigration Status |
| 11:30 – 11:45 AM | Emily Peterson | Patient Navigator Services for Patients With Breast Cancer Who Self-Identify as Black |
Room 734 – Theme: Global Health
| 10:30 – 10:45 AM | Gelan Ayana Zewdie | Artificial Intelligence for Community-Based Measles Outbreak Prediction |
| 10:45 – 11:00 AM | Alastair Fung | Prediction of infant hospitalization and death using clinical features assessed by community health workers during routine postnatal household visits in Dhaka, Bangladesh |
| 11:00 – 11:15 AM | Breanna Wodnik | Exploring the role of organizational learning in creating, nurturing, and sustaining compassion in organizations: A multiple case study of two health centres in Kenya and Uganda |
| 11:15 – 11:30 AM | Elaheh Najafi | Enhancing Healthcare Data Management and Governance: Proposed Blockchain-Based Data Governance Models |
| 11:30 – 11:45 AM | Pavel Zhelnov | ResearchWaste.info: Raising awareness of avoidable waste in health research |
Room 696 – Theme: Health Economics
| 10:30 – 10:45 AM | Seyed-Mohammad Fereshtehnejad | Economic evaluation of a digital health intervention for preventing dementia in Canadians with mild cognitive impairment |
| 10:45 – 11:00 AM | Christopher Lozano | Laminoplasty compared to laminectomy and fusion for degenerative cervical myelopathy: a cost-utility analysis |
| 11:00 – 11:15 AM | Chaoran Dong | Estimating the economic impact of reducing geographical disparities in pediatric cancer care |
| 11:15 – 11:30 AM | Sakshi Jain | Estimating the cost of the health burden from violence against women and violence against children: a global costing study |
Oral & Poster Presentations 2
1:00 PM – 2:20 PM | 6th and 7th Floor Lobbies, 610, 696, 790, 734, and 740
6th Floor Open Space
| 1 | Giulia Mesaroli | Reliability and validity of the Pediatric PainSCAN©: A screening tool for pediatric neuropathic pain and complex regional pain syndrome |
| 2 | Pegah Rahbar | The association of low back pain and sleep quality among adults 60 and older: a systematic review |
| 3 | Abdullah Aljughaiman | Barriers to breastfeeding and human milk provision in the NICU: a scoping review |
| 4 | Madison MacKinnon | Alcohol and substance use policies on Canadian university campuses: a scoping review of grey literature |
| 5 | Joyce Tsang | Late-effects among survivors of adolescent and young adult bone tumors |
| 6 | Lidia Mateus | The role of implicit bias on occurrences of diagnostic error among equity deserving groups |
| 7 | Abhishek Chopra | Bridging data gaps to eliminate Hepatitis C: a learning health system approach |
| 8 | Iman Amir | Analyzing the barriers and facilitators that affect South Asian’s participation in the diabetic education program at the diabetes management centre in the peel region of Ontario |
| 9 | Jaclyn Hearnden | Speech recording tasks required for vocal biomarker identification in heart failure: a scoping review |
| 10 | Hemn Khdr | Predicting stroke risk using machine learning: the role of anxiety and depression |
| 11 | Omid Jafarinezhad | Fragmented data, fragmented AI: a live look at the impact of data silos on precision medicine in Canadian health |
| 12 | Adela Zyfi | Improving cell block cellularity in effusion cytology through standardized preparation techniques |
| 13 | Matvey Kipershtein | A seven-pronged knowledge mobilization strategy to advance equitable, patient-centred, and scalable community healthcare in Ontario |
| 14 | Yannay Khaikin | Intravaginal Vitamin C for the treatment and prevention of bacterial vaginosis: a systematic review and meta-analysis |
| 15 | Ebenezer Adeniyi | A mathematical modelling approach to cholera dynamics in African countries with persistent outbreaks. |
| 16 | Batool AlMousawi | Community-centered and equity-informed work enhancement: codesigning practice improvements for community health workers across community health centers |
7th Floor Open Space
| 17 | Justin Pymento | Mapping the regulatory infrastructure for clinical trials in World Health Organization member states |
| 18 | Sakshi Jain | Early-life participation in supplemental nutrition assistance program and its effects on educational attainment in children |
| 19 | Yukiko Mihashi | Mental health service utilization measures among youth: a scoping review |
| 20 | Ella Pearson | Cost-effectiveness analysis of using remote titration for guideline-directed medical therapy optimization in heart failure patients: a three-year Markov model from the public payer perspective |
| 21 | Jinfan Qiang | Effectiveness of diabetes prevention programs in primary care for prediabetes and at-risk patients |
| 22 | Darby Little | Primary care utilization and attachment among burn survivors: a population-based matched cohort study |
| 23 | Maryam Pyar Ali Lakhdir and Ifeyinwa Akamike | Economic evaluation of the connected care program plus usual care vs. usual care alone for children with medical complexities discharged with medical technology |
| 24 | Christopher Lozano | Re-assessing the minimal clinically important differences of patient reported outcomes in cervical myelopathy: a patient-centered approach from the Canadian spine outcomes and research network |
| 25 | Anglin Dent | Machine learning for the prediction of massive hemorrhage in trauma: a systematic review, meta-analysis, and APPRAISE-AI study |
| 26 | Mary Elias | Real-world impact of flash glucose monitoring systems in Ontario, Canada |
| 27 | Ruochen Feng | The impact of different vaccination strategies on malaria transmission in Cameroon |
Room 610 | Theme: Bridging Reality and Research
| 1:00 – 1:15 PM | Kamyar Kazari | AI-powered decoding of online gaming and gambling: a live demo of behavioral risk detection |
| 1:15 – 1:30 PM | Sonya Grewal | Bridging the gap: patient and healthcare professional perspectives on accessing and using cancer genetics services by racialized and ethnic communities |
| 1:30 – 1:45 PM | Guan Wang | Does the implementation of integrated health care promote primary health care utilisation and people satisfaction in china? |
| 1:45 – 2:00 PM | Charlotte Calvez | Effective strategies for achieving equity in genetic research: a systematic review |
| 2:00 – 2:15 PM | Vina Mohabir | Beyond a pill: digital therapeutics for pediatric pain assessment and management |
Room 790 | Theme: Epidemiology
| 1:00 – 1:15 PM | Vishwathsen Karthikeyan | Will the numbness in my hands improve after surgery for myelopathy? An observational study from the Canadian Spine Outcomes and Research Network (CSORN) |
| 1:15 – 1:30 PM | Nathan Best | Incidence and causes of 30-day emergency department visits following transcatheter closure of atrial septal defect and patent foramen ovale in Ontario Canada |
| 1:30 – 1:45 PM | Katherine Sawicka | Application of Rasch measurement theory to the expanded disability status scale: limitations in contemporary Multiple Sclerosis |
| 1:45 – 2:00 PM | Mohammad Jay | Risk factors for renal stone development in adults with primary hyperparathyroidism: a systematic review and meta-analysis |
| 2:00 – 2:15 PM | Priti Gros | The MDS-UPDRS III in early disease is not associated with future Parkinson’s disease milestones |
Room 740 | Theme: Health Policy
| 1:00 – 1:15 PM | Adam Suleman | Virtual care use for patients with hematologic malignancies – a natural policy experiment |
| 1:15 – 1:30 PM | Asiana Elma | From judicious managers to administrative intermediaries: a systematic review and integrative mixed-methods research synthesis on family physicians’ perspectives on the work of the administrative process of facilitating referrals |
| 1:30 – 1:45 PM | Emily Hamovitch | Factors associated with patient satisfaction in primary care settings |
| 1:45 – 2:00 PM | Matthew Tracey | Theories of financialization and health systems governance: a critical interpretative synthesis |
| 2:00 – 2:15 PM | Yun-Ting (Paige) Chu | Caregiver perspectives on rare disease management: a qualitative study on the Canadian political economy of blood plasma |
Room 734 | Theme: Health Systems
| 1:00 – 1:15 PM | Chloe Wong | A dedicated trauma operating room for hand surgery reduces after-hours cases without affecting wait times: a retrospective single-center cohort study |
| 1:15 – 1:30 PM | Angelica Hanna | Late presentation for cataract surgery: a case control study |
| 1:30 – 1:45 PM | Dominique Vervoort | Access to cardiac surgery in Ontario, Canada: a geospatial analysis |
| 1:45 – 2:00 PM | Jeneen Massad | Understanding and improving communication in the operating room using hackman’s framework for team effectiveness |
| 2:00 – 2:15 PM | Jin Tong Du | Recreational cannabis legalization and antipsychotic prescribing: causal inference using the synthetic control method |
Room 696 | Theme: Health Informatics
| 1:00 – 1:15 PM | Shant Torkom Yeretzian | Assessing the health system impact of an H5NS influenza pandemic in Ontario, Canada: a microsimulation model |
| 1:15 – 1:30 PM | Timileyin Awolola | Artificial intelligence in healthcare and clinical decision-making: bridging research innovation with real-world practice |
| 1:30 – 1:45 PM | AmirHosein Rostami | Neighborhood-based Type 2 Diabetes prediction in Toronto using socio-economic determinants |
| 1:45 – 2:00 PM | Konrad Samsel | Exploring the commercial determinants of online gambling using machine learning |
| 2:00 – 2:15 PM | Joseph Saliba and Celine Liu | Mental Health Screening Tools for Anxiety and Depression in Post-Secondary Students: A Literature Review to Inform Digital Intervention Development |
Photography Notice
By entering the event premises, you consent to photography, audio recording, video recording and its/their release, publication, exhibition, or reproduction to be used for news, web casts, promotional purposes, telecasts, advertising, inclusion on websites, or any other purpose by DLSPH and its affiliates and representatives. You release DLSPH, its officers and employees, and each and all persons involved from any liability connected with the taking, recording, digitizing, or publication of interviews, photographs, computer images, video and/or sound recordings.
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Email Address: ihpme.communications@utoronto.ca